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Friday, April 23, 2010

The Squirrel Can Cook – Hashbrowns

I’ve been buying these hashbrowns at Costco for years. So, the other day, while I’m in the checkout line, a Costco employee asked me about them.

He said that he had just bought some, but that the instructions seemed like a lot of trouble, with all the soaking and draining and such before you could cook them. I started talking about the easy home recipe on the box… He said, “What easy home recipe?” I looked, and it wasn’t there! They no longer put the easy home recipe on the box! So, here it is.

The first thing I do is pre-measure 4- serving portions into bags (that’s 1 ½ cups of the dried potatoes.)

You’ll get 7 bags per carton. And I just store the bagged portions in an old carton (that still has the easy home recipe printed on it…)

Now, for the cooking:

In a 10-inch non-stick skillet over medium-high heat, melt 2 tablespoons of butter, then add 1 ½ cups of hashbrowns and 1 ½ cups of hot water & give it a stir to mix in the butter. Cook, uncovered, for 8-10 minutes, until water is absorbed and the bottom of the hashbrowns is brown. You can tell when they're ready to flip when an easy shake of the skillet can get them to slide about. If the entire skilletfull of hashbrowns do not slide easily, or tries to come apart, give them another minute, then check them again. Looking for browning at the edge of the pan can help. Flip the hashbrowns over, and brown the other side for 2-3 minutes.

Sluggy Freelance

WARNING: Sluggy Freelance is a quirky, offbeat, secular comic strip for grown-ups. It is not an "adult" cartoon, but it is PG-13, and not for children. I think it's funny, and that's probably a sign of my own depravity. Yes, the bunny is cute, but he's homicidal, OK?